Friday, May 04, 2007

Buying Gold - How I Lost My WoW Account

Until yesterday, I was one of the highest-ranked fury spec warriors on my WoW server's PVP ranking list. After numerous of end-game raiding with my guild, I had finally gathered almost all of my class armor and was satisfied of my gear. As my guild's PVP officer and off- tank, I prepared all of our raids and taught up-and-coming players on key offensive and defensive skills. All of that changed yesterday, however, when Blizzard permanently closed my WoW account.

It all began three weeks ago when I decided to purchase quantities of cheap World of Warcraft gold from a well known MMORPG gold selling site on the internet. I was frequently in need of gold to repair my broken weapons and armor as I was the guild's off- tank, my gear took a bit a hammering and I was exhausted of farming for hours each day, just to make enough gold to barely cover my dear repair costs. The advertisement for "Cheap WoW Gold" got my attention, I reckoned it couldn't hurt to check it out. The website guaranteed to deliver World of Warcraft gold straight to my character's in-game mailbox for an acceptable price, in real American dollars, of course. Taking into consideration how much I loved the game and all the time I used raiding, I thought that buying cheap World of Warcraft gold was a good investment for my Warrior. Purchasing WoW gold meant that I wouldn't have to grind for repair cost anymore. I could spend more time assisting my fellow guild-mates powerlevel their alts and raiding. It looked like an excellent idea at the time.

Weeks after my gold purchase, though, I received an email was from Blizzard, the creators of World of Warcraft. The email informed that my World of Warcraft account had been under investigation for fraud and that it was being permanently closed due to "exploitation of the WoW economy". I was stunned! Just a single purchase of wow gold had flagged my account and resulted in its complete termination. I tired contacting Blizzard to get my account reopened, but the Blizzard rep stood firm on their stance that buying wow gold is a violation of the game's Terms of Use. My actions were at direct odds with the "essence" of WoW, and there would be no undoing of the resulting consequences.

In just a few moments, I had lost everything I had worked so hard for in-game. It didn't matter that I was a top ranked player, a fully-geared level 70 warrior with a flying mount, my guild's main tank, or a guild officer. Blizzard had wiped out my account as if it had never existed. The whole idea made me sick to my stomach and I immediately regretted taking the easy way out by buying wow gold. Still worse, though, was the news that my account closure destroyed the guild I had worked so hard to help build. My account closure left an opening for the position of main tank, causing a major battle to erupt amongst the remaining end-game warriors over who was the most qualified to take my place. This fierce infighting caused the guild to fracture and, as a result, many long-standing guild members left to join other groups. Just five days after my account was terminated, the guild officially disbanded.

If I had known a few weeks ago what I now know, I would have never bought World of Warcraft gold. Any small temporary benefit it provided me was not worth the ultimate price I paid for my indiscretion – the complete and permanent closure of my World of Warcraft account. I learned the hard way that the easy way out is often the most risky, so think twice before purchasing cheap WoW gold for your character. Are a few extra virtual coins really worth the risk of losing everything?